tuesday book stack : free to learn
The importance of play—crucial for children’s healthy psychological development and ability to thrive in life—is woefully underestimated by parents and educators, according to Peter Gray, a Boston College developmental psychologist and author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life.
“Play is how children learn to take control of their lives.”
All children are born with an innate curiosity, playfulness, sociability and deep desire to learn, but at some point after they enter school, what was once fun and engaging begins to feel forced, he explains. And, anxiety and stress levels among youths are at an all-time high: they are bogged down with homework, over-scheduled with extracurricular activities, deprived of free play, and faced with the pressures of getting into a top college.
“How did we come to the conclusion that the best way to educate students is to force them into a setting where they are bored, unhappy and anxious?” Gray asks. “Our compulsory education system features forced lessons, standardized tests, and seems specially designed to crush a child’s innate and biological drives for learning.” The traditional “coercive” school model, he adds, was originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.
Free to Learn outlines the difference between structured play (Little League) and free play (a pickup game of baseball) and emphasizes the need for the latter in society worldwide.
Gray’s descriptions of trustful parenting resonate so deeply with me. This is not about being a good parent or a bad parent by sending kids to traditional school or choosing to unschool them, though regretfully many conversations around educational choices devolve to that point. Instead, it is about trustful parenting, which sends messages such as these to children: You are competent. You have eyes and a brain and can figure things out. You know your own abilities and limitations. Through play and exploration you will learn what you need to know. Your needs are valued. Your opinions count. You are responsible for your own mistakes and can be trusted to learn from them. Social life is not the pitting of will against will, but the helping of one another so that all can have what they need and most desire. We are with you, not against you.
This is my choice for parenting. Trustful parenting.
